From the corner of kindness came truth

“Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.”

Theodore Isaac Rubin

When Bridget and I talk about conflict and how to resolve it, I regularly come back to the mantra of “do everything with kindness”. Positioning ourselves from the corner of kindness, rights our intention. If we can’t communicate from that place, then we should adopt another mantra, “if you don’t have anything good to say, then don’t say anything at all.”

I didn’t intend to write about kindness this morning. I didn’t intend to write at all. But I have a full plate right now, evidenced by my head full of fears and my heart filled with love and sorrow. And in an effort to steady my own ship this morning, I needed to remove something from my plate. I didn’t want to but I needed to remove it, because keeping it there, and not treating it with all the kindness and love it deserved was unfair.

I had the pleasure of meeting someone recently who saw me, warts and all. Honestly, I don’t have any warts, but he did see my truth. He had this uncanny ability to pick up my thoughts and reservations that were communicated via my body language, my tenor, my attention, and my presence. It was not unnerving. It was endearing. And it helped me stay grounded in my truth.

And so I entered the peaceful boxing ring this morning and stood in the kindness corner and wrote a letter of truth to him. And while I wish I could keep him on my plate, and all the joys that he would bring, I know that he would see through my veil of reservations. Being kind is being human. We treat our fellow man or woman with the respect that we expect in return. And even though we might not like the outcome, the consequence of communicating in-kind is peace.

This I know to be true: Living in the truth is both joyful and painful, heavy and light, kind and forgiving.

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11 Thoughts

What a beautiful thing to do, Karen. Both for him and for you. We don’t all (or should I say ‘always’?) have the courage to make some space for ourselves when the plate runneth over. We push the reservations aside, thinking, what do I know and then, later, hearts are broken needlessly.
Truly wonderful.

I believe you touch upon grace when you understand kindness in the way that you have here. Kindness really means something, and I could be all predictable and say “Now, more than ever” but really, has the world ever been a kind place, really? And so we search, the way you and me just commented about over on my blog. We search and we hope there is something more to all of this.
Maybe it starts with understanding kindness the way you have.

Thank you. I like your take on it: Kindness yielding grace. Yes, the world is what we make of it. If we want it to be ugly, so be it. If we want it to be kind, we need to make it such. I’ll choose kindness any day.